Researchers say they may have the final clues needed to solve the mystery of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which never resurfaced after it became the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship, taking its eight-man crew to a watery grave.

Looks like the Hunley may have sunk because its spar torpedo prematurely detonated on contact while it was only about 20 feet from the Housatonic. The whole idea behind that type of torpedo was the sub was to ram it into the target ship, back off about 100 feet, and detonate it by pulling a lanyard that was attached to the torpedo's firing mechanism. In the Civil War users of such devices ran the constant risk of "work accidents."

It’s striking how “modern” that design looks. Could easily be mistaken for a WW1 vessel, at least from the outside.

I often wonder if a fleet of these would have made a difference in the outcome of the war. It could have caused some expensive losses for the Union if the Confederacy was able to take out large warships at will.

I read somewhere about a Union “torpedo boat” attack against the Confederate ironclad Albermarle, secured behind a floating log barrier.

An officer named Cushing took a steam launch armed with one of those spar torpedoes (14 feet long) up the river and attacked. Cushing stood on the bow with the lanyard in his teeth as his left and right hands held reins he pulled to tell the coxwain to go left or right - afraid his voice would carry.

The log barrier was slimy from being in the water and the launch rode over it and got close enough to detonate the bomb. The explosion sank the ironclad as well as the launch.

All were captured except Cushing who stole a skiff and floated back down the river, barely alive. Talk about men who clanked when they walked.

Since then, one vision of a hero I have is a guy standing on the bow of a wooden boat attacking an ironclad in the middle of the night, with a detonating lanyard gripped in his teeth and only 14 feet away from high explosives.

There was a movie chronicling the Hunley a few years back that starred Donald Sutherland” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162897 Not a great movie but a decent depiction of the planning, construction, testing, and execution of this experimental sub.

It had to take tremendous courage to close the lid and submerge in that thing knowing that people died in the test runs.

10
posted on 01/29/2013 8:24:38 AM PST
by rockrr
(Everything is different now...)

There is a great Life magazine paperbound book from 1960 with great paintings and there is one of Cushing in the bow of the launch. Well worth it if you can find it for the paintings alone. Back when “the war” meant the Civil ‘War. I always remember that painting. I think I may still have the book buried somewhere. May be able to find one on ebay. It had a painting of Brandy Station battle on the cover. Hugh cavalry battle prior to Lee's Gettysburg campaign.

My wife and I went to see the Hunley last Spring. Tucked away deep within an abandoned naval base, it is very hard to find, but well worth the effort. The curators did forensic reconstructions of all of the occupants from their skulls, and so when walking in, you'll see a cabinet of eight or nine severed heads, an impression that is hard to shake. Equally impressive is the fact that this was the ill-fated submarine's third crew after the prior two crews had all perished. I recall something from the exhibit that mentioned it took over 100 pounds of soap to clean rotted flesh from the interior Hunley after its second sinking.

Just looking at that thing I knew those men had certain body parts made of steel.

Far beyond steel. The darn thing sank, killing everyone one board TWICE and each time they raised it up and more men volunteered to get in. The last mission was the third time it took its crew to the bottom.

I had heard that H.G. Wells “predicted” atomic weaponry in THE WORLD SET FREE. This was hard to find, but I got a hold of it and read it. He actually did make such a prediction, or extrapolation, from his knowledge of Rutherford’s experiments with radioactivity. The thing is, he got it hilariously wrong. Of course the very essence of a nuclear explosion is its instantaneity, but as he imagined it, it was very slow to develop, even though inexorable.

He describes a deployment where a bombadier takes a large pot or jug and pulls a cork from it WITH HIS TEETH, and tosses it out of his cockpit. After it lands it develops into a sort of volcano. Wells’ description of this development, if taken out of context, is very suggestive of a mushroom cloud, so even as he was wrong, he was right.

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